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49. Revolution (Molting)

䷰
Above
兌 duì
The Joyous, Lake
Below
離 lí
The Clinging, Fire

The Chi­nese char­ac­ter for this hexa­gram means in its orig­i­nal sense an an­i­mal’s pelt, which is changed in the course of the year by molt­ing. From this the word is car­ried over to apply to the “molt­ings” in po­lit­i­cal life, the great rev­o­lu­tions con­nect­ed with changes of gov­ern­ments. The two tri­grams mak­ing up the hexa­gram are the same two that ap­pear in K’uei, OP­PO­SI­TION, that is, the two younger daugh­ters, Li and Tui. But while there the elder of the two daugh­ters is above, and what re­sults is es­sen­tial­ly only an op­po­si­tion of ten­den­cies, here the younger daugh­ter is above. The in­flu­ences are in ac­tu­al con­flict, and the forces com­bat each other like fire and water (lake), each try­ing to de­stroy the other. Hence the idea of rev­o­lu­tion.

The Judgement

Revolution. On your own day
You are believed.
Supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
Remorse disappears.

Po­lit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tions are ex­treme­ly grave mat­ters. They should be un­der­tak­en only under stress of direst ne­ces­si­ty, when there is no other way out. Not every­one is called to this task, but only the man who has the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple, and even he only when the time is ripe. He must then pro­ceed in the Book 1: The Text right way, so that he glad­dens the peo­ple and, by en­light­en­ing them, pre­vents ex­cess­es. Fur­ther­more, he must be quite free of self­ish aims and must re­al­ly re­lieve the heed of the peo­ple. Only then does he have noth­ing to re­gret.

Times change, and with them their de­mands. Thus the sea­sons change in the course of the year. In the world cycle also there are spring and au­tumn in the life of peo­ples and na­tions, and these call for so­cial trans­for­ma­tions.

The Image

Fire in the lake: the image of revolution.
Thus the superior man
Sets the calendar in order
And makes the seasons clear.

Fire below and the lake above com­bat and de­stroy each other. So too in the course of the year a com­bat takes place be­tween the forces of light and the forces of dark­ness, even­tu­at­ing in the rev­o­lu­tion of the sea­sons. Man mas­ters these changes in na­ture by not­ing their reg­u­lar­i­ty and mark­ing off the pas­sage of time ac­cord­ing­ly. In this way order and clar­i­ty ap­pear in the ap­par­ent­ly chaot­ic changes of the sea­sons, and man is able to ad­just him­self in ad­vance to the de­mands of the dif­fer­ent times.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
Wrapped in the hide of a yellow cow.

Changes ought to be un­der­tak­en only when there is noth­ing else to be done. There­fore at first the ut­most re­straint is nec­es­sary. One must be­come firm in one’s mind, con­trol one­self—yel­low is the color of the mean, and the cow is the sym­bol of docil­i­ty—and re­frain from doing any­thing for the time being, be­cause any pre­ma­ture of­fen­sive will bring evil re­sults.

Six in the second place means:
When one’s own day comes, one may create
revolution.
Starting brings good fortune. No blame.

When we have tried in every way to bring about re­forms, but with­out suc­cess, rev­o­lu­tion be­comes nec­es­sary. But such a thor­ough­go­ing up­heaval must be care­ful­ly pre­pared. There must be avail­able a man who has the req­ui­site abil­i­ties and who pos­sess­es pub­lic con­fi­dence. To such a man we may well turn. This brings good for­tune and is not a mis­take. The first thing to be con­sid­ered is our inner at­ti­tude to­ward the new con­di­tion that will in­evitably come. We have to go out to meet it, as it were. Only in this way can it be pre­pared for.

Nine in the third place means:
Starting brings misfortune.
Perseverance brings danger.
When talk of revolution has gone the rounds
three times,
One may commit himself,
And men will believe him.

When change is nec­es­sary, there are two mis­takes to be avoid­ed. One lies in ex­ces­sive haste and ruth­less­ness, which bring dis­as­ter. The other lies in ex­ces­sive hes­i­ta­tion and con­ser­vatism, which are also dan­ger­ous. Not every de­mand for change in the ex­ist­ing order should be heed­ed. On the other hand, re­peat­ed and well-found­ed com­plaints should not fail of a hear­ing. When talk of change has come to one’s ears three times, and has been pon­dered well, he may be­lieve and ac­qui­esce in it. Then he will meet with be­lief and will ac­com­plish some­thing.

Nine in the fourth place means:
Remorse disappears. Men believe him.
Changing the form of government brings good
fortune.

Rad­i­cal changes re­quire ad­e­quate au­thor­i­ty. A man must have inner strength as well as in­flu­en­tial po­si­tion. What he does must cor­re­spond with a high­er truth and must not spring from ar­bi­trary or petty mo­tives; then it brings great good for­tune. If a rev­o­lu­tion is not found­ed on such inner truth, the re­sults are bad, and it has no suc­cess. For in the erfd men will sup­port only those un­der­tak­ings which they feel in­stinc­tive­ly to be just.

Nine in the fifth place means:
The great man changes like a tiger.
Even before he questions the oracle
He is believed.

A tiger­skin, with its high­ly vis­i­ble black stripes on a yel­low ground, shows its dis­tinct pat­tern from afar. It is the same with a rev­o­lu­tion brought about by a great man: large, clear guid­ing lines be­come vis­i­ble, un­der­stand­able to every­one. There­fore he need not first con­sult the or­a­cle, for he wins the spon­ta­neous sup­port of the peo­ple.

Six at the top means:
The superior man changes like a panther.
The inferior man molts in the face.
Starting brings misfortune.
To remain persevering brings good fortune.

After the large and fun­da­men­tal prob­lems are set­tled, cer­tain minor re­forms, and elab­o­ra­tions of these, are nec­es­sary. These de­tailed re­forms may be likened to the equal­ly dis­tinct but rel­a­tive­ly small marks of the pan­ther’s coat. As a con­se­quence, a change also takes place among the in­fe­ri­or peo­ple. In con­for­mi­ty with the new order, they like­wise “molt.” This molt­ing, it is true, does not go very deep, but that is not to be ex­pect­ed. We must be sat­is­fied with the at­tain­able. If we should go too far and try to achieve too much, it would lead to un­rest and mis­for­tune. For the ob­ject of a great rev­o­lu­tion is the at­tain­ment of clar­i­fied, se­cure con­di­tions en­sur­ing a gen­er­al sta­bi­liza­tion on the basis of what is pos­si­ble at the mo­ment.